Wiseman
A vile sorcerer and a raging psychopath with a sadistic edge and no room for empathy or emotion. Completely warped by his own values and lust for power, Wiseman is responsible for some of the most horrendous atrocities and tragic moments in the Baten Kaitos Series. Dead set on promagnating every living soul in existence, he sees all living creatures as nothing more than potential victims for his plans of conquest and war. His vile actions led to the devastation that was The War of The Gods and the formation of the planet into floating continents. Years after his initial plans fail, he resurfaces within the form of Verus, intent on using the creations of machina and Malpercio's afterlings for his own ends. Biography Conquest and War A potentate who lived a thousand years prior to the beginning of the series's story and one of the ultimate villains of the entire series, Wiseman is shown to be the personification of ultimate power and evil and is responsible for the deaths of billions of innocent people. According to him, a physical existence was extremely flawed and in-efficient with the body only serving to weaken one's Wings of the Heart. Thus, Wiseman himself discarded his own body to live as a more powerful being of purely Magnus energy. He saw this as the next logical step in evolution for the human race and indeed the whole world and went about sharing his breakthroughs with the magical ability to capture the magna essence of anything within cards. While this indeed led to an era of peace and prosperity, Wiseman went one step further and decried that this would be the fate of all humanity and that an existence as magnus would lead to prosperity for the entire world. Wiseman revealed he had the power to discard anyone's body and give them an existence as pure energy. He had even gained the power to make himself stronger by absorbing a person's magnus into his being, whether or not this was the eventual fate of all that he Pro-Magnated is never revealed although it is implied a great many were nonetheless At some point Wiseman also gained control over a large portion of the Earth and went about Pro-Magnating entire cities to herald in his reign of a pure magna kingdom. During this campaign, Wiseman goes from village to village and forcibly pro-magnates everybody residing within them, eventually gaining a following in Cujam, the crown jewel of his kingdom where he holds a ceremony each day to pro-magnate one person. However many did not agree with this and attempted to fight back, but Wiseman proved to be so strong that those that retaliated were killed or forcibly Pro-Magnated, including men, women, and even children and infants. He is met with particular opposition from five siblings from the village of Naos, Seph, Thoran, Marno, Pieda, and Ven, whom he overwhelms with his power when they attempt to engage him in battle. Seemingly just to spite the five siblings, Wiseman attacks their village while they are on their way back, killing nearly every man, woman, and child, leaving only one child and man turned to magnus as they did not fight back. It is this event that compels the group of five to make contact with the Dark Brethren and sell their souls to the demons in exchange for powers potent enough to stop Wiseman and his warped plans and desires once and for all. Calling themselves collectively as Malpercio, named after the hill they grew up on playing, the sibling prepare to rage war on Wiseman and his followers. As Wiseman prepared to conquer the entire world and pro-magnate every last soul and absorb them into himself, he gathered thousands of his own followers from Cujam through manipulation and enlisted the help of the Black Dragon to bring about a massive war and pro-magnate all existence. Therefore, Wiseman was the true instigator of the War of The Gods and led an incredibly brutal and violent war, destroying entire nations and lands and murdering millions of people. After Malpercio fails to kill Wiseman and only succeeds in destroying the other gods, the people of Cujam, and cause further conflict after the Dark Brethren take control of the siblings, the Children of the Earth slaughter all five members of Malpercio and seal away a piece of each god in an end magnus. While the land is left poisoned and filled with a sea of bodies, Wiseman is shown to be devouring the hearts of hundreds of corpses when Sagi, Milly, and Guillo arrive after the battle is over. He expressed interest in their hearts and how peculiar they were before nonetheless deciding to feast on them. He orders Black Dragon to attack them, promising him that he will enjoy a feast of hearts, all the while simply using his heart to control the dragon as he had done with the people of Cujam. They succeed in destroying the dragon and soon after, Wiseman, ending the horrible conflict once and for all. Rebirth and Plans in the Future Even after the devastation of the War of the Gods, not all of Wiseman was destroyed and a portion of his power remained in the realm, binding to beings of hatred, anger, and power envy. His evil even finds enough strength to travel to other dimensions and continue in his mad quest to turn others into magnus or send them to their doom if they refuse. He later finds the perfect host in Verus, a man bitter from the wars which left him weak and desired great power. Wiseman preyed upon this and came to control the man in another attempt to conquer the world and become all powerful. In the present, Wiseman used Verus as a host for his plans, preying upon the weaknesses of others such as Shanath and used Verus's prestige, power, and wealth to further his malicious plans. Wiseman studied the world throughout the years, learning numerous secrets about many other characters including Sagi, Guillo, Milly, Baelheit, and Geldoblame and factored all of them into his plans. He intended to use machina to conquer the world, control it, and keep it neutralized until he fed off enough of the negative energies of Verus's heart to resurface and absorb every person's magnus into himself. To accomplish this, Wiseman, through Verus, arranged for Emperor Olgan to be killed to compel Baelheit to start pro-machination efforts and then manipulate Sagi to thwart them and draw out afterlings, leftover body parts of Malpercio that took root in other people, animals, and plants to live. With Sagi stopping pro-machination, Baelheit would be forced to launch a flying fortress known as Tarazed, which Verus planned to seize control of and use to restructure the world. All was going perfectly to plan except for Verus's election campaign to become the next emperor of Alfard. Verus was running to become the next Emperor to secure even more power, but was no match against Baelheit as he was seen as a hero for capturing the afterlings. Verus then came up with a horrid plan to draw out the afterling in Sagi in front of Baelheit to slander his good name. To accomplish this, he has Gena, his former lover and Sagi's mother, abducted and her wings pulled out in front of Sagi. This was done by Shanath, but was seen as a publicity stunt to the public eye under Baelheit's orders. This was not the case though, as Shanath merely convinced Baelheit to allow it, thinking it would serve his campaign against people having Wings of the Heart. When Sagi saw this, he was overcome with so much anger and hatred that he turned into an afterling, but was subdued. Even after all this, Baelheit still won the election and was the new Emperor. Nonetheless, Sagi succeeded in destroying Machination efforts, forcing Baelheit to launch Tarazed. All that remained was for Sagi to kill Baelheit, allowing Verus to take control of the fortress and conquer the world, reshaping it in his image. When Sagi finally manages to defeat Baelheit, Verus arrives on the fortress with Geldoblame and brutally murders Baelheit. He reveals through this betrayal that he had played everyone for a fool and had used Geldoblame and Sagi to achieve dominance. In the case of Geldoblame, who had respected and looked up to Verus his whole life, this was heartbreaking. Now revealed as the main villain, Verus revealed his intent to use the afterlings and machina to obtain absolute power and desired to destroy everything and rebuild it as his own. Final Showdown As Verus took control of Tarazed, he prepares for an all scale attack on all the nations of the world, planning to slaughter the entire Alfard senate for refusing to elect him and all the people who opposed him. Going down to the bowels of the fortress, Verus programs all of the Machina and prepares for them to invade the continents. Sagi, Milly, and Guillo follow him, each fueled by personal tragedies and betrayals he put them through, and engage him in a fight to the death. Verus and his machina are soon defeated and while Verus tries to call the Machina to help him, they turn on him and brutally attack him again and again until every shred of life leaves his body. The exact reason as to why the machina suddenly attacked Verus is never explicitly stated, but it is hinted it was because the specific afterlings that were powering them contained the essences of the other four sibling gods. As a result, they sensed that their sibling, Marno, who is contained within Sagi and is acting as his guardian spirit, was in danger and they then decided to influence the machina to attack and destroy the man who was attempting to kill their brother. After being defeated, Wiseman reveals himself and, using the immense hatred and vengeance in Verus's heart to resurface in true form, consumes Verus's heart of taint, power, and hunger and forms an amalgamation of the two called Verus-Wiseman. Wiseman then transports the trio into an inter-dimensional rift and reveals his intentions to devour their hearts and then force the rest of the world to join with him and become its all powerful ruler for eternity. He soon attacks the trio and engages in a brutal showdown, which goes in his favor until the five sibling gods of Malpercio temporarily escape from their tortured imprisonments to help. With the encouragement of the five brave warriors and gods of Malpercio, Sagi, Milly, and Guillo all recover and relentlessly attack Wiseman. After an intense fight, Wiseman is finally destroyed, taking Verus’s body with him and leaving nothing but the villain’s old cane behind. His defeat caused a chain reaction that destroyed all of Tarazed, which soon crashed, while Sagi and Milly escaped to live together as a married couple. With this, Verus and Wiseman's plans and horrid ambitions came to an end, but the ramifications of their actions would impact the future of the world for decades to come. His betrayal against Geldoblame caused the once noble man to break into insanity and turn into a tyrant of unimaginable evil. This would lead to another campaign of violence and reign of terror that would ensure the return of Malpercio and, through the demonic god, the Dark Brethren. Legacy Despite his seemingly ultimate destruction at the hands of Sagi, Wiseman's presence is felt throughout the Baten Kaitos series even after his death. As being the one who spread or even created the ideas and power behind Magnus, a central point in the plot of both games, undoubtedly makes him one of the most important characters to the series. He can also be considered the reason for the existence of Malpercio, as the group that comprise it with their Magnus originally gained their powers to defeat him, although they do not succeed in this attempt until 1,000 years after their deaths. Ultimately, Wiseman is the catalyst for the entire series as his actions have led to the creation of Malpercio, the destruction of the Earth and its formation into floating continents, the manipulation of Verus, caused the insanity of Geldoblame through Verus, and is, therefore, the reason the events of Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean occur. Appearance and Traits Due to him discarding his body to obtain pure magnus and power, Wiseman always wears an unusual suit of armor; with an elongated head, large, crystalline eyes, and feathered, winglike arms. The form of the body beneath the armor, if there is one, is unknown. His wings of the heart are unlike any other character's, forming a circle of floating, dagger-like objects that are constantly changing color. The strength of his heart is said to be "beyond reckoning", which gives him enormous magical power. He also has a very chilling and slow manner of speaking and always refers to himself in the third-person. Whether this is the usage of the royal "we" or perhaps the fact that he is referring to not only himself, but the still living magnus of his victims within him as well, is unknown. Personality With the possible exception of the Dark Brethren, Wiseman is shown to be the most cruel, evil, and power hungry villain in the Baten Kaitos Series. As his name implies, Wiseman was an incredibly intelligent being, capable of leading the nations to prosperity and inventing the art of transferring objects into magnus to preserve their essence. It is unknown how Wiseman came to rule the nations, but it is heavily suggested that he did so through much violence and warfare. While not much is known about the villain's past, it is known that Wiseman was, at one point, a human being. During his years of ruling however, he sought greater power and ultimately sacrificed his body to attain it and a pure magnus form. This action is a true reflection of his lust for power, illustrating that his desires make him believe that the human body holds no significance if it can be sacrificed for greater power. His plans to turn everyone into magnus also shows his complete disdain for romance, human interaction and emotion, as he does not care that he will be unable to engage in any of those feelings and acts without a human body. His reputation and power envy soon developed into pure narcissism, to the point that he believed that the entire world had no choice but to follow in his plans and lead the world into a new age of evolution. His superiority complex was shared with a highly sadistic and cruel personality, as he enjoyed in murdering men, women, children, infants, and entire nations as he took the souls and magnus of the millions he slaughtered and absorbed them into himself. Wiseman accumulated so many souls over the years, that it allowed him to manipulate and control the hearts of thousands of others at a time, human or monster. This is what led to the War of the Gods, a conflict so horrible that the earth was to be separated into continents to even have a chance of surviving. He is shown to not care for anyone. Even when the Black Dragon was destroyed by Sagi, Milly, and Guillo, he was unaffected by the loss, and if anything was overjoyed that they did so and wondered what color their respective magnus would turn out. The power of Wiseman's heart was so strong that it was said to be beyond reckoning and even lived on after a brutal fight with Sagi and continued to plague other villages and dimensions. His evil and power found residence in Verus and, as such, Verus shares many personality traits with Wiseman, such as power hunger, sadism, cruelty, and a manipulative and cunning mind. While Verus was a man of great evil to begin with, Wiseman was also manipulating his actions for his own ends, technically making Verus a reborn version of Wiseman. In the end, Wiseman and the Dark Brethren are shown to be the ultimate evils within the Baten Kaitos Series, with no love for anybody or anything other than themselves and power. His lust for power turned Wiseman into a psychopathic mass murderer and warlord who would do anything to obtain power, including giving up his humanity and becoming a personification of pure evil. Boss Battle Field Guide Description Potentate of the Age of Gods who refined the power of the spirit and began trapping life in Magnus. It is unknown whether he is a corporeal human. His wings and the space surrounding him spellbind. "Be reborn as Magnus!" Uses: Light, Darkness, Unequip Weak: None Gallery File:Baten_Kaitos_Origins_-_Boss_Wiseman|The battle with Wiseman (Please note this is not the original battle theme) File:Baten Kaitos Origins - True Final Boss|The Final Battle against Verus-Wiseman Trivia *Ironically, even though he possessed Quaesor Verus and was implied to be responsible for most if not all of his heinous actions, his actual motives in the past and when revived were closer to those of Baelheit's Promachination efforts. Category:Characters Category:Villains